Entrepreneurship and Collaboration

The literature on entrepreneurship often references the one “big idea;” the singular innovative vision for something new, often the invention of one singular talent.  But, as we know, it takes a team of many to actualize that one big idea.  I’ve been preparing to teach a unit next week on collaboration and the ways in which group work supports the process of entrepreneurship, especially the kind of creative thinking that often underlies arts entrepreneurship.  In my posting a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned Warren Bennis and  Patricia Ward Biederman’s book ORGANIZING GENIUS: THE SECRETS OF CREATIVE COLLABORATION (Basic Books, 1998).  To prepare for my class next week, I’m using a selection from that text, as well as disciplinarily specific one, COLLABORATION IN THEATRE: A PRACTICAL GUIDE FOR DEISGNERS AND DIRECTORS by Rob Roznowski and Kirk Domer (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). [In the interest of full disclosure, I note that Domer worked with me when he was a grad student at UW-Madison and I was on the faculty there.]  In reading and synthesizing these, I developed a list of actions we all can undertake to be more effective collaborators and entrepreneurial team members:

1. Communicate
2. Know your team members
3. Ask questions
4. Do your research
5. Look for the “next thing,” not the last thing
6. Look for relationships
7. Be “deep generalists” rather than “narrow specialists” (Bennis)
8. Work together toward a collective purpose
9. Articulate the group’s mission
10. Be optimistic
11. Embrace the idea that groups are temporary and project-focused
12. Find commonalities
13. Listen, then adapt
14. Listen, then participate
15. Reach consensus
16. Respect your team members